Kateryna Tretiakova, executive producer at Solar Media Entertainment, a Ukrainian film production company, during the the 79th annual Cannes Film Festival on May 14, in France.Gabriel Hutchinson/The Globe and Mail
Just a few steps from the grand Palais, where the Cannes Film Festival’s premieres light up Boulevard de la Croisette every evening, sits the Village International, a series of 60 pavilions that act as mini cultural embassies. Sandwiched between the stations for Lithuania and Hong Kong, the Ukrainian Pavilion is small but mighty: It might not have the open-air beach access of the Canadian pavilion or the full-service bar of the American hub, but there is an abundance of passion and resistance.
During a panel session this past weekend on the current state of Ukrainian documentaries, the Ukrainian pavilion was so jammed that organizers ran out of chairs, with the assembled crowd needing to lean forward to hear the speakers over the thrum of a pair of fans keeping everyone cool.
Typically, festival delegates flit in and out of these kinds of talks, especially one that was causing attendees to sweat. But as producer Eugene Rachkovsky carefully detailed the challenges of getting Ukrainian cinema out into the world during wartime – his words backgrounded by a wall-sized banner plastered with the words “Cinema with Courage” – the space remained standing-room-only.
“We need to keep the country going, and we need to keep our business going, just like any other industry. But while it’s our work, it’s also very important for everybody to keep culture strong,” says Kateryna Tretiakova, a veteran film and television producer who was one of dozens of Ukrainian artists in Cannes this past week.
“We have an opportunity during this festival to show our films, to show that we can keep filming and show our professionalism that has only become stronger.”
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It hasn’t been easy. Tretiakova, who has worked on everything from the thriller Gorky Resort to the forthcoming television series Limitedly Suitable (“a story about how to remain yourself during war”), vividly remembers the initial impact of Russia’s illegal invasion of her country in 2022.
“At first, we were all shocked, and of course we stopped working. We were frozen, and a lot of people who were filmmakers moved on,” says Tretiakova, who is now based in France, but travels back to Ukraine frequently. “And then we shifted our efforts. Cinematographers became drone operators. Producers started organizing charities. But at the same time, we did our best to keep the industry alive so that we can stay visible around the world.”
In terms of history, Ukrainian filmmakers boast a strong cinematic legacy, stretching from the pioneering 1930s work of Oleksandr Dovzhenko through the influential 1960s art-house (and anti-Soviet) dramas of Yuri Ilyenko to the contemporary, explicitly political documentary cinema of Mstyslav Chernov. Cannes in particular has made a concentrated effort to spotlight the country’s artists, last year hosting “Ukraine Day,” in which programmers screened three new films dedicated to events and figures in the war.
The Ukrainian government, led by a president with a long entertainment-world background, also recognizes the crucial role that culture plays in capturing hearts and minds. Earlier this year, Kyiv launched the “Thousand Spring” funding program, dedicating approximately $124-million to the creation of national cultural content, including film. And as Cannes kicked off, Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture partnered with the European Solidarity Fund for Ukrainian Films to promote five new films from the country that are looking for production and distribution partners.
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Other countries have been doing their part, too. In 2023, the German Film Institute helped install the Ukrainian pavilion at Cannes, and Estonia has also provided support. Delegates from all over the world have steadily streamed into the space over the past week, eager to experience the VR documentary Shelter, which offers users a 360-degree look at life inside bomb shelters, or listen to pitches for such projects as Anton Shtuka’s The Last Prometheus of Donbas, a documentary about the “last operating power plant in the East of Ukraine,” and Ksenua Bugrimova’s doc Dad, in which the director confronts her father over his support of Moscow.
Locally made documentary cinema is considered especially essential at this moment in the war, thanks to the crushing influx of Russian propaganda that has spread both inside Russian President Vladimir Putin’s nation and outside its borders.
“We’re seeing Russia put a lot of money toward this, so it’s very important to help our creators produce Ukrainian content with Ukrainian narratives and Ukrainian values,” Tretiakova says. “But entertainment also plays its role in shaping the narrative and spreading important values.”
For her part, Tretiakova hopes to leave Cannes with crucial industry contacts and new funding partners. But most of all, she is hoping that other countries, including Canada, are further exposed to what her country’s fellow filmmakers are doing under literal fire.
“We are fighting. And this time, it’s more important than ever to stay Ukrainian,” she says. “We need to stay in the news, for our stories to stay in the spotlight. And film helps do that so well.”